Gymnastics Coaching.com

This post via RecGymnastics.com, the new site dedicated to all things non-competitive. (We’re still looking for Rec experts to contribute there.)

Meet Darlene Fedyna, owner of Gymtastics in Calgary, Canada.

She’s just launched Gymtastics GymTools:

From little things, big things grow

Educational Teaching Tools • Gymnastics Program Tools • Specialty Program Tools • Visual Aid Tools • Marketing Tools • Management Tools

There’s more to come. But you will get a good idea of what’s offered by checking out the new website – GymtasticsGymTools.com

Rik Feeney produces these free calendars.

Click over to GymnasticsTrainingTips.com for a high resolution PDF version.

He’s announced electronic editions of many of his books:

* Gymnastics Choreography
Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/65ar5rw

* Back Handsprings: The Secret Techniques
E-book: http://tinyurl.com/5wot6pn

* Cheerleading: Conditioning for Back Handspring & Tumbling Success!
E-book: http://tinyurl.com/5wot6pn

* The Gymnastics Journal
E-book: http://tinyurl.com/5wot6pn

See all Rik’s books on his Gymnastics Library page.

Corey has something like this stack of different sized mats as a permanent station in the gym. It’s used for bar releases, clear hips, etc.

$2,625 – details on Mancino

At a Saskatchewan Provincial training camp at QCK in Regina we wanted to build a high stack of mats for practicing flyaway drills to flat back.

Wesley Chirima had a system I’d never seen before.

He and Mark Kurmey threaded rope across the cables of a pit low bar.

Next they folded a 4 inch landing mat over the set-up to create the base of the stack.

Finally, they added an series of mats to make it as steep as possible, at just the right distance for the gymnasts.

Fun. Safe. Easy. No spotting required.

This was an ideal set-up.

Director Dave Adlard has announced the tentative dates for summer 2011: July 24-28

Click through to the website for details – HPTCamp.com

The goal of this camp is FUN and MOTIVATION for the kids. Super high coaching level.

It’s in Coeur d’ Alene close to the Spokane airport.

A highlights edit.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Anna Li … ??

At 1min 20 you can see some of the Bar connections she’s working on. Looks like fun.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

http://videoplayer.flocasts.org/player.swf

Anna knows how to HIT Bars. If she can get close to a 7.0 start score, we’ll be cheering her in London. I could see her competing Beam / Bars.

Could the use of platelet-rich plasma help reduce the number of Achilles tendon injuries in gymnastics?

One older Canadian gymnast tells us it worked for her. She linked to a YouTube video doctor’s description of the procedure.

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is blood plasma that has been enriched with platelets. As a concentrated source of autologous platelets, PRP contains (and releases through degranulation) several different growth factors (cytokines) that stimulate healing of bone and soft tissue. PRP has received popular attention due to its use in treating sports injuries in professional athletes. …

When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is …

From a recent NY Times article:

… Its appeal only soared higher when professional athletes like Tiger Woods and the football players Troy Polamalu and Hines Ward reported that it cured them.

It is a new procedure, based on an idea that once seemed revolutionary: Inject people with their own blood, concentrated so it is mostly platelets, the tiny colorless bodies that release substances that help repair tissues. …

Now, though, the first rigorous study asking whether the platelet injections actually work finds they are no more effective than saltwater. The study, reported in the Jan. 13 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, involved people with injured Achilles’ tendons, fibrous tissue that connects the calf to the heel bone.

“We are sorry for the patients,” Johannes Tol, the lead researcher and a professor of orthopedic research at the Hague Medical Center in the Netherlands, said in an interview this week. “There still is no good treatment.” …

read more – Popular Blood Therapy May Not Work

That doesn’t mean coaches shouldn’t still consider the option. Many have reported success. But there’s no evidence yet that it actually works.

Note that there’s a slight risk of testing positive for a doping infraction after this treatment.

Leave a comment if you’ve had any personal experience with PRP.

NCAA Collegiate Schedule | CollegeGymFans.com | NCAA Friday | NCAA Saturday | American Gymnast videos FREE

… ANNOUNCED a new Recreational Gymnastics blog

New and interesting elements that were performed at the 1987 USSR Gymnastics Championships.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Gymnasts shown are Shushunova, Pryakhina, Sarkisyan, Zadorozhny, Schepotchkin, Porplenko, Kharkov, Rodion, Martsinkiv and Tikhonkikh.

The first triple back in competition was not Liukin, but Yuri Porplenko, seen in that highlights reel.

He did it first at the USSR Cup in Jerevan, Armenia, April 1986.

(via Rewriting Russian Gymnastics)